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Ershad seeks

parole for

running in polls

DHAKA: Jailed former Bangladeshi president Hussain Muhammad Ershad is seeking parole so he can run in the coming parliamentary elections, news reports said Tuesday.

His principal lawyer, Mahbubur Rahman, said in a published statement that Ershad had asked him to appeal to Muhammad Habibur Rahman, who heads Bangladesh's caretaker administration, to set him free on parole so he can lead his Jatiya Party (JP) in the polls.

Otherwise "the present caretaker government will not be taken as neutral and honest" and "proper participation" of the JP in the polls would be impossible, the lawyer said.

Ershad, who is serving a 13-year term for graft, faces a dozen more similar charges, besides being linked to a murder case.

Following the resignation of ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia last month following a prolonged opposition battle for elections under a neutral caretaker government, Rahman took over as chief advisor but cannot take any major policy decisions.

The polls deadline is June 28.

Ershad, Bangladesh's longest serving head of state or government, came to power in a 1982 bloodless coup and stepped down after about nine years in the face of a mass pro-democracy campaign.

Only three months afterwards, Ershad won five parliamentary seats - the maximum one candidate can contest - in the 1991 polls.-AFP